Requests for clarification have been coming to the Archdiocese of Dublin concerning the authenticity of alleged visions and messages received by a person who calls herself “Maria Divine Mercy” and who may live in the Archdiocese of Dublin.
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin wishes to state that these messages and alleged visions have no ecclesiastical approval and many of the texts are in contradiction with Catholic theology.
These messages should not be promoted or made use of within Catholic Church associations.
Communiqué of the General House of the Society of Saint Pius X on the Beatification of Pope Paul VI
On October 19, 2014, at the close of the Extraordinary Synod on the family, Pope Francis will go forward with the beatification of Pope Paul VI. The Society of Saint Pius X wishes to express serious reservations concerning beatifications and canonizations of recent popes, whose rushed proceedings dispense with the wisdom of the Church’s centuries-old rules.
It is true that Paul VI was responsible for the encyclical Humanae Vitae[1], which letter instructed and consoled the Catholic family at a time when the most basic principles of marriage were under bitter attack. So they are again, and in a scandalous fashion, by certain members of the present Synod.
But Paul VI is also the Pope who saw Vatican II to its conclusion, thereby introducing in the Church a doctrinal liberalism manifested especially in errors such as religious liberty, collegiality, and ecumenism. The result was an upheaval which he himself admitted on December 7, 1968, in the following words: “The Church is now confronted with uncertainty, self-criticism, one might almost say self-destruction. As if the Church were doing violence to Herself.” The following year he conceded: “In many areas the Council has not yet put us at peace; it has rather stirred up trouble and difficulties which are useless for reinforcing the Kingdom of God in the Church and in souls.” He went so far as to give this dire warning on July 29, 1972: “The smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God through some crack: doubt, incertitude, dissension, worry, discontent, and conflict are plain to see…” But he was merely stating a fact, while failing to take those measures capable of stopping the self-destruction.
Paul VI is the Pope who imposed a liturgical reform of the rites of Mass the other sacraments for reasons inspired by ecumenism. Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci denounced this new Mass because it departed “significantly, on the whole and in its details, from Catholic theology of the holy Mass as formulated during the 22nd session of the Council of Trent.”[2] Along the same lines Archbishop Lefebvre said that the new Mass was “infused with a protestant spirit” which is a “poison inimical to the Faith.”[3]
Under his pontificate many priests and religious were persecuted, and even condemned, for their fidelity to the Tridentine Mass. The Priestly Society of Saint Pius X remembers with great sorrow the condemnation of 1976 whereby Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre found himself suspens a divinis because of his attachment to that Mass and his categorical refusal of the reforms. Only in 2007, with the issuance of Pope Benedict XVI’s motu proprio, was it finally admitted that the Tridentine Mass had never been abrogated.
Following in the footsteps of its founder, the Society of Saint Pius X declares yet again its attachment to the Church’s two thousand-year-old Tradition, convinced that such fidelity, far from vain nostalgia, in fact provides an apt remedy to the Church’s self-destruction.
Given at Menzingen October 17, 2014
[1] July 25, 1968.
[2] In Brief Critical Study of the New Mass, preface of Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci, September 3, 1969, sec. 1.
[3] Open Letter to Confused Catholics, Angelus Press September 2010.
フェレー司教 : どちらか一方だけということではありません。私たちの創立者ルフェーブル大司教は、私たちが信仰を告白するのに用いる神学的議論というのはローマの当局者には必ずしも理解されないが、そうだからといって私たちがそのような神学的議論をする義務から免れるわけではない、とよくおっしゃっていました。加えてルフェーブル大司教は持ち前の超自然的な現実主義から、聖伝の具体的な実り、すなわち、神学校、学校、修道院や、司祭、修道士、修道女の数、また神学生、平信者の数もまた証拠として大きな価値を持っているとおっしゃっていました。これらの目に見える事実に対してうわべだけの議論は通用しません。ラテン語では contra factum non fit argumentum.（事実に反して議論はできない。）といわれます。この場合、このラテン語のことわざを翻訳するとすれば、イエズス・キリストのみことば「木はその実によってわかる」になるでしょう。この意味で、私たちは信仰を告白すると同時に、聖伝の生命力をも証言してゆかなければならないのです。
先日、聖ピオ十世会アメリカ管区で行われた「アンジェルス・プレス 2014年講演会：ミサ聖祭 教会の中心」Angelus Press Conference 2014 - The Mass - Heart of the Church のビデオ・クリップをご紹介します。（ティシエ・ド・マルレ司教様、クチュール神父様やジョン・ヴェナリさんなどが映っていて、嬉しく思いました。John S. Burke Catholic High School で長い間校長として働いていた Monsignor James Byrnes 神父様の姿も見えました。）
人々はホテルを出て移動し、市民センターの入り口まで深い沈黙のうちに行進した。集中豪雨の予報が八〇パーセントの確率で出ていたにも関わらず、行列がロザリオ三環を唱え、町中にクリストゥス・ヴィンチトの歌声を響き渡らせ、市内を通り過ぎて市民センターへと向かうにつれて、焼け付くような太陽が行列の上に照りつけた。カンザスのセントメリーから来たThe Knights and Honor Guardが隊列を導き、イリノイ州オリヴェト（Olivet）のラ・サレット・ボーイズ・アカデミーの聖歌隊がミサの聖歌を歌い、親切な案内係を務めた。
[1] 引用は雑誌「Der Spiegel」vol. 2014, no. 5.より。
[2] ノルベルト・クチュキ編「Gott heute: 15 Beiträge zur Gottesfrage」(Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag, 1967)中のエッセイ、ヴァルター・カスパー「“Gott in der Geschichte”」、強調点は筆者。
[3] ヴァルター・カスパー「Einführung in den Glauben」(Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag, 1974, 19837)、9.4章、148ページ。
[4] ヴァルター・カスパー「Jesus der Christus」(Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag, 19787)、パートII: Geschichte und Geschick Jesu Christi, III章, 105-106ページ。
[5] 上掲書、106ページ。
[6] 上掲書、106ページ。
[7] 上掲書、149-150ページ。
[8] 上掲書、129ページ。
[9] Theologische Meditationenシリーズ(Zürich, Einsiedeln, Köln, 1973)第32巻、ヴァルター・カスパー、ユルゲン・モルトマン「Jesus ja―Kirche nein?」中のヴァルター・カスパー「“Jesus und der Glaube”」、20ページ。
[10] ヴァルター・カスパー「Einführung in den Glauben」、55ページ。
[11] 「“Pope Francis greets Ukrainian Cardinals and praises Cardinal Kasper’s ‘kneeling theology’”」、Vatican Information Service、2014年2月21日。
[12] ジウゼッペ・ナルディ、Katholisches.info、2014年2月27日。
[13] デンツィンガー、「The Sources of Catholic Dogma」、Roy J. Deferrari翻訳[1955]、原書はHeinrich Denzingerの「Enchiridion Symbolorum」第30版(Fitzwilliam, NH: Loreto Publications, no date)、297ページ。
そして、ここには、「Omnia instaurare in Christo per Immaculatam」という、聖マキシミリアノ・コルベ神父様のモットーを掲げられています。これは私の、コルベ神父様は私の人生の、一番の理想のモットーです。
今日のこの講話では、「Omnia instaurare in Christo per Immaculatam」という、このマキシミリアノ・コルベ神父様のモットーの意味を説明したいと思います。
Interview with Bishop Fellay after his meeting with Cardinal Müller
You were received by Cardinal Müller on September 23rd. The communiqué from the Vatican Press Office repeats the language of the 2005 communiqué issued after your meeting with Benedict XVI, which already said that the parties would “proceed gradually and over a reasonable period of time… with a view to the envisioned full communion.” The 2014 communiqué, on the other hand, speaks about “full reconciliation.” Does this mean that you are starting over at the beginning?
Yes and no, depending on the perspective that you take. There is nothing new, in the sense that both our interlocutors and ourselves, we realize that doctrinal differences still exist―which had been made quite clear during the theological discussions in 2009-2011―and that because of this we were unable to sign the Doctrinal Preamble that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has proposed to us since 2011.
But what is new?
There is a new pope and a new prefect heading the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. And this recent interview shows that neither they nor we want a break in our relations: both parties insist that it is necessary to clarify the doctrinal questions before there is any canonical recognition. This is why, for their part, the Roman authorities are demanding the endorsement of the Doctrinal Preamble which, for our part, we cannot sign because of its ambiguities.
Another new fact is the current aggravation of the crisis in the Church. On the eve of the Synod on the Family, serious, well-founded criticisms made by several cardinals against Cardinal Kasper’s proposals about communion for the divorced-and-remarried are coming to light. This has not been seen in Rome since the criticisms by Cardinal Ottaviani and Bacci in their Short Critical Study on the New Order of Mass (the “Ottaviani Intervention” of 1969). But what has not changed is the fact that the Roman authorities still do not take our criticisms of the Council into account, because to them they seem secondary or even illusory, given the severe problems in the Church today. These authorities do recognize the crisis that is convulsing the Church at the highest level―now among cardinals―but they do not consider that the Council itself could be the main cause of this unprecedented crisis. It is like a dialogue of deaf people.
Can you give a specific example?
Cardinal Kasper’s proposals in favor of communion for divorced-and-remarried persons are an illustration of what we blame on the Council. In the talk that he gave to the cardinals during the Consistory on February 20th of this year, he proposed doing again what was done at the Council, namely: reaffirming Catholic doctrine while offering pastoral overtures. In his various interviews with journalists he harps on this distinction between doctrine and pastoral practice. He says that theoretically doctrine cannot change, but he introduces the notion that concretely, in reality, there are some situations in which the doctrine cannot be applied. Then, in his opinion, only a pastoral approach is capable of finding solutions… at the expense of doctrine.
For our part, we blame the Council for making this artificial distinction between doctrine and pastoral practice, because pastoral practice must follow from doctrine. Through multiple pastoral concessions, substantial changes have been introduced in the Church, and its doctrine has been affected. This is what happened during and after the Council, and we denounce the same strategy that is being used today against the morality of marriage.
But was it only pastoral changes in the Council that indirectly affected doctrine?
No, we are in fact obliged to note that serious changes were made in doctrine itself: religious liberty, collegiality, ecumenism…. But it is true that these changes appear more clearly and more evidently in their concrete pastoral applications, because in the conciliar documents they are presented as simple overtures, just hinted at, with much left unsaid….which makes them, in the words of my predecessor, Fr. Schmidberger, “time bombs.”
In the proposals of Cardinal Kasper, where do you see a pastoral application that makes more evident a doctrinal change introduced during the Council? Where do you see a “time bomb?”
In the interview that he granted to the Vaticanist Andrea Tornielli on September 18th, the Cardinal says: “Church doctrine is not a closed system: the Second Vatican Council teaches us that there is a development, meaning that it is possible to look into this further. I wonder if a deeper understanding similar to what we saw in ecclesiology, is possible in this case (i.e. that of divorced Catholics who have remarried civilly). Although the Catholic Church is Christ’s true Church, there are elements of ecclesiality beyond the institutional boundaries of the Church too. Couldn’t some elements of sacramental marriage also be recognized in civil marriages in certain cases? For example, the lifelong commitment, mutual love and care, Christian life and a public declaration of commitment that does not exist in common-law marriages.”
Cardinal Kasper is quite logical and perfectly consistent: he proposes applying pastorally to marriage the new principles concerning the Church that were spelled out at the Council in the name of ecumenism: there are elements of ecclesiality outside the Church. He moves logically from ecclesial ecumenism to matrimonial ecumenism. Thus, in his opinion, there are elements of Christian marriage outside of the sacrament. To look at things concretely, just ask spouses what they would think of “ecumenical” marital fidelity or fidelity in diversity! Similarly, what are we supposed to think about a so-called “ecumenical” doctrinal unity that is united in diversity? This sort of result is what we denounce, but the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith either does not see it or else does not accept it.
How are we to understand the expression from the Vatican communiqué: “proceed gradually?”
The mutual desire of Rome and in the Society of Saint Pius X to continue doctrinal discussions in a broader, less formal framework than in the previous discussions.
But if the doctrinal discussions in 2009-2011 accomplished nothing, what good is it to resume them, even in a broader fashion?
Because, following the example of Archbishop Lefebvre, who never refused to go to Rome at the invitation of the Roman authorities, we always respond to those who ask us about the reasons for our fidelity to Tradition. We could not shirk this responsibility, and we will fulfill it in the spirit and with the obligations that were defined by the last General Chapter.
But since you just mentioned the audience that Benedict XVI granted me in 2005, I remember saying then that we wanted to show that the Church would be stronger in today’s world if it upheld Tradition; I would also add: if it proudly recalled its bi-millennial Tradition. I say it again today, we wish to contribute our witness: if the Church wants to end the tragic crisis that it is going through, Tradition is the response to this crisis. This is how we manifest our filial piety toward eternal Rome, to the Church, the mother and teacher of truth, to whom we are deeply devoted.
You say that this is about giving witness; it is not rather a profession of faith?
One does not exclude the other. Our Founder liked to say that the theological arguments with which we profess the faith are not always understood by our Roman interlocutors, but that does not relieve us of the duty to recall them. Moreover, with his characteristic supernatural realism, Archbishop Lefebvre added that the concrete accomplishments of Tradition: the seminaries, schools, priories, the number of priests, brothers and sisters, of seminarians and lay faithful, also had a great value as proof. Against these tangible facts no specious argument can hold up: contra factum non fit argumentum. In the present case, we could translate this Latin adage by the saying of Jesus Christ, “A tree is judged by its fruits.” And in this sense, while professing the faith, we must give witness to the vitality of Tradition.
